


Jalapenos on the Side

by stillscape



Series: ranch-flavored off-brand Doritos [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 17:16:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11741610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: Raptorlily prompted: "Betty helps Jughead deal with Ethel's crush on him. Pre-relationship preferably, because I'm a sucker for it, but entirely up to you!" and then she and onceuponamirror were sensitive brooding bad influences who talked me into writing Betty's POV.





	Jalapenos on the Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raptorlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptorlily/gifts), [onceuponamirror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamirror/gifts).



> I know. I KNOW I HAVE A WIP.

It wasn’t in Betty Cooper’s nature to play matchmaker, but it _was_ in her nature to want to see her friends happy. So when Ethel (whom she thought of as a friend, more or less) hesitatingly let slip that she was thinking of maybe asking Jughead (whom she liked to think of as a friend, even though she was pretty sure he thought of her as “Archie’s other friend whose presence I tolerate”) to the Sadie Hawkins dance, a big smile broke across Betty’s face. 

Only after she’d given Ethel her blessing—or really, more of a reassurance that to her knowledge, Jughead had not been asked to the dance—and Ethel marched out of the girls’ locker room with a determined look on her face did it occur to Betty that to her knowledge, Jughead had no interest in girls in general, let alone Ethel in particular. Kevin had assured her several times that Jughead’s inclinations didn’t go in the other direction; how Kevin knew that, she didn’t know, but she trusted his analysis. She had therefore always assumed Jughead was some combination of late to the party and against engaging in behaviors that made other people occasionally look like idiots in public, but maybe (she thought now, as Ethel went on her merry way) his inclinations didn’t go anywhere at all. 

_It’s fine_ , she told herself, nodding at her reflection in the mirror as she tightened her ponytail. _Ethel’s been thinking about this for a long time, and she should act. It’ll be better to know. And Jughead never gets out of his comfort zone. This will be good for him_. 

It wasn’t good for Ethel, apparently. Betty sidled up next to her as they were leaving school; she was walking home, while Ethel was in line for the bus. “So?” she asked eagerly, and Ethel shook her head. 

“I asked him,” she said, “and, well…” 

“Oh, no,” Betty said, feeling her face fall. “What happened?”

“He kind of muttered some stuff and then ran away.” 

“Was there a ‘yes’ anywhere in the muttering?” Betty asked, hoping against hope. Ethel shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Ethel. I shouldn’t have told you to…” 

“It’s okay,” Ethel said, although she looked fairly crestfallen. “I mean, now I know, right?” 

Betty felt her brows knit together. She and Ethel weren’t so close that she felt like hugging the other girl, but she laid a friendly hand on Ethel’s elbow. “That was really brave of you,” she said, and she meant it. 

Ethel almost, _almost_ , smiled. “Thanks, Betty.” 

She was reading in her bedroom after school, pointedly ignoring the running clothes her mother had laid out on her bed, when Archie called. She picked up at once, of course, and stepped over to her window to see if Archie was looking out of his. 

(He wasn’t.)

“Hi, Archie.” 

“I need you to come over,” he said, eschewing any other form of greeting. “Right now.” 

She automatically slipped her bare feet back into the flats she’d been wearing earlier. “What’s the matter?” 

Archie paused for a moment, and then said, “Ethel Muggs.” 

He opened the front door before she was even at the first step of the front porch, and started gesturing her inside. 

“Is something going on with Jughead?” she asked, as she followed Archie up the stairs to his bedroom; it seemed a safe assumption that Ethel was not in Archie’s bedroom. Archie pushed open the door, and she saw Jughead on the floor, next to Archie’s video game chair but not sitting in it, curled up into a little ball. 

“You talk to him,” said Archie, sounding rather helpless. “I’ll go… I’ll go get sodas. Or snacks. That would make you feel better, right, Jughead?”

Jughead looked up, his face so morose that Betty had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. _This isn’t funny_ , she told herself, but then she thought _Jughead is practically in fetal position because someone asked him to a dance_ , and decided no, actually, it was all awfully funny. 

Archie was saying something about nachos, and then rushing out of the room as quickly as he could. 

“You don’t like jalapenos, Betty. You should go tell him,” Jughead said, clearly meaning _leave me alone_. 

“It’s okay,” she said, her mind flashing back to those running clothes laid out on her bed. “I don’t want any nachos.” 

Jughead continued scowling as she settled herself on Archie’s bed, preparing to play armchair psychologist. 

“So tell me about your day.” 

“Please don’t you start too,” Jughead groaned, and nope, Betty was not going to have an easy time keeping herself from laughing at him, especially not when she then had to _argue_ with him over whether or not it was normal for a girl to express interest in him. He was just being so melodramatic about it. 

“You had to expect that at some point, something like this was going to happen,” she said. And then a little voice in the back of her mind said _what if he didn’t?_

“Something like Ethel Muggs cornering me in the hallway to…” 

“Juggie, all she said was that she wanted to go to the Sadie Hawkins day dance with you.” 

“That was _not_ all she said.” 

Oh. Oh, that added a new layer. Had Ethel finally confessed her feelings? She decided to keep things neutral, in case she was way off. “It wasn’t?” 

Jughead’s eyes narrowed. “You already talked to Ethel about this.” 

“Ethel talked to me,” she said quickly. “I mean, she came to me for advice beforehand. And then afterwards she just said it hadn’t gone well.”

He looked so much like he was about to combust with embarrassment that Betty found herself defending herself, defending Ethel; in a weird way, it almost felt like she was defending Jughead to himself. 

But then he mentioned _poetry_. Her jaw dropped, and the whole thing was awfully funny again. Jughead Jones, Riverdale’s own self-styled literary wunderkind, coming undone because a girl had read him a poem. A girl who had been looking longingly at him, on and off, for the last three years. 

“Oh, no,” Betty said, slipping to the floor beside him. “I definitely didn’t authorize anything resembling poetry.” 

She spent the next bit of conversation trying not to laugh again, until Jughead said “I just don’t understand why,” sounding as though he hadn’t meant for the words to come out. 

“Why what? Why Ethel thought a poem would be a good idea, or why she’d want to ask you to the dance in the first place?”  
   
He cast a helpless glance around the room. “Both, I guess?”

Suddenly, with a shock, Betty realized that Jughead had somehow completely missed three years’ worth of longing glances. 

“Juggie,” she said, as kindly as she could, “she’s had a crush on you since sixth grade.” 

He looked as though she had literally dropped a bomb on him. 

“… _why_?” 

“Why does anyone get a crush on anyone else?” Betty asked. The whole situation was starting to feel less funny again, and she wished Jughead would just let her pick a side, humorous or not humorous, and stick with it. “You’re cute and smart and funny, Jug. And you have to know the whole sensitive brooding loner thing really works for a lot of girls.” 

At this, Jughead went completely rigid, and stayed that way for a surprisingly long time. Betty reassessed the situation for what felt like the fifteenth time, and decided it was both funny (because, well, it was) and also perplexing (because she knew that despite his general standoffishness, Jughead was actually quite observant, and _how_ had he not noticed Ethel looking at him for the last three years) and, finally, a little sad (because if Jughead had not picked up on the fact that he was cute, smart, and funny, well… the idea sent a little twinge through her heart). 

Her brain got stuck on the third part, and was still there when Jughead spoke again.

“That’s what you think this is, Betts?” he said, waving a hand over his entire body. “A sensitive brooding loner… thing? 

And all at once, she knew Jughead’s idea of himself as a sensitive brooding loner must be akin to her image of herself as the perfect girl next door. The stereotypes were there, just waiting to be put on and worn. Sure, sometimes Betty’s perfect girl next door image felt like the world’s most comfortable bra, but sometimes (and more and more often, she thought) it felt like a bra made of the world’s itchiest lace, with straps that wouldn’t stay up, cups a size too small, and the underwire poking through. It wasn’t just a bra she couldn’t wait to rip off; it was a bra she couldn’t wait to rip off _and set fire to_. 

(But she couldn’t very well go to school without a bra on, now could she?)

The realization that someone else had to go through life as she did, trying not to chafe to death under the weight of her own image, almost made her cry; and then on top of that, she hated herself just a little bit for having that much uncontrollable emotion. 

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, as she felt the familiar relief of her fingernails digging into her palms. “I’m sorry.” 

Jughead’s eyes slid sideways to her, and she got the feeling he was thinking at her. Or about her. Or something. She focused on unclenching her hands, and was still focusing on that when Archie burst in the room with an unfairly delicious-looking plate of nachos, jalapenos—unfortunately for her willpower—on the side. 

Archie handed her a soda (regular, not diet—which she preferred, of course, but _god_ , so much sugar). 

“I’ll be fine, Arch,” she heard Jughead say. “Cooper here says I’m a catch, and I’ll just have to get used to girls throwing themselves at me.” 

This time, under the familiar pitch of his sarcasm, she heard that he _meant_ the self-deprecation. He meant it, and another twinge went through her heart. 

“Really?” said Archie. 

“Glad to have your support.” 

“I forgot napkins,” Archie announced, and he was gone again. 

Jughead had just bitten into a truly unfairly delicious-looking nacho when for some reason he looked at her and said “What?” through his food. 

“Nothing. Just…you know I wasn’t kidding, right? You—you shouldn’t be surprised if girls like you.” She made sure she was looking at him, making unblinking eye contact, because she wanted him to know that she _meant_ it. Who these girls were aside from Ethel Muggs, she wasn’t sure, but she knew even if they didn’t exist now, they would soon. 

Jughead broke eye contact and frowned at his soda; for a moment, Betty was afraid she’d gone too far, that she’d sent him right back into another half-catatonic state. 

“Cooper,” he sighed, “will you just eat some damn nachos?” 

Who these girls were aside from Ethel Muggs, she wasn’t sure; but suddenly she knew something else: that when one of these girls materialized, and Jughead liked her back, that girl would be awfully damn lucky. If she could keep up with the sarcasm.

In any case, Betty decided, she had put in enough emotional labor for the afternoon, and she was therefore perfectly justified if she decided to do as Jughead recommended, and eat her feelings. 

“Sensitive brooding loner bad influence,” she muttered. 

As she shoved a nacho in her mouth, she could swear she saw him start to smile.


End file.
